Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has a hearty and loud laugh but it would be a foolish mistake to take the man lightly or question his business acumen.
By Anirban Ghosal
Already spearheading a successful campaign of e-commerce in India, Bezos via his Internet company wants to take India through a digital revolution.
Impressed by the energy of the people here and the Indian food, Bezos at an event organised by Ficci last week in New Delhi, said that he has great expectations from the country which is developing so fast due to the quick rise of the mobile era or smartphone penetration which is due to be followed up by a bigger digital revolution.
Talking about technology and its future in India, Bezos said that the Amazon India team is highly innovative in all of its approach and the unusually high number of SMEs in India has helped the India venture to try out more approaches to tackle the problems here.
Apart from the already operating programmes, Bezos hinted that Amazon India has the benefit of using the experience of Amazon and use data collected earlier to get better results. “I do not run the business in India but my team which has produced fascinating and stunning results. I am just a reach uncle sitting in Seattle who sends money from time to time helping them execute the ideas.”
While in conversation about his drone programmes, Bezos hinted that Amazon was looking to go independent and not rely upon any other company to help its businesses across any vertical starting from delivery to software. He also talked about the failure of Amazon web services and said that “One example of failure is the web search engine that was launched. Only seven people, including my mother, used it. We have tried and failed at many things but that is part of our journey.”
When asked about his opinion about the future of digital economy, Bezos said, “It is still day one of the digital revolution. We are trying to make the most of it as technology is changing so fast. I don’t know what the future is but Amazon in India is currently looking to invest and expand more.”
During his conversation, Bezos was asked about the Kindle business and also the book-selling business and to which he said, “The Kindle project is a success. Necessarily buying a Kindle doesn’t mean that a customer is going to stop buying paperbacks or hard covers.” At the same time he also indicated that though the online movement has nearly brought the print to a point of extinction, the print business has still time and it is going to stay on for some time more.
When asked about competition,Bezos rarely made any point but as Amazon has shown in the past, it is capable of competition—it has just rolled out a week-long festival discount offer against Flipkart’s day-long bonanza slated for October 6. A few months ago, it had announced a $2-billion India investment, just a day after Flipkart’s $1-billion fundraising.
There are already media reports that claim that Amazon is also due to sell food and beverages in India although Bezos made no comment about it during the meet. Reports claim that Amazon is already accepting offers to start sales.
Before concluding the event here filled with tech insights and a few personal jokes like ‘I do the dishes at home,’ Bezos said that he was very excited about his India visit and would return to work in Seattle with an extra kick in his step.
